The Galaxy A50 smartphone is the latest entrant into the refreshed A-series – an attempt by South Korean giant Samsung to reclaim the market share that it lost in India to Chinese manufacturers such as Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo that are known for their cheap phones with alluring features.

Earlier, the Galaxy A-series had devices in the price range of Rs 20k – Rs 40k and was the second-best lineup after the Galaxy Note and Galaxy S series.

The A50 smartphone’s camera is one of its biggest highlights. At the rear, there’re a total of three cameras – a 25MP main sensor, an 8MP ultra-wide lens and a 5MP depth sensor. A 25MP selfie camera sits at the front and has a special selfie focus for blurring out backgrounds. Let’s now look at the performance of the device.

Design and display

In terms of design, the first thing that you notice is that its 6.4-inch display is nearly bezel less, with only a 91.6 per cent screen to body ratio. While the chin is noticeable, the overall look of the Galaxy A50 is slim, light-weight and makes devices such as the Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro, Galaxy A9 (2018) look boring.

Interestingly, the Galaxy A50 also features the in-display fingerprint sensor – a feature that’s exclusive to this phone in the recently refreshed A-series. While the sensor is not ultrasonic like the Galaxy S10 or Galaxy S10 Plus, the very fact of its presence at this price point can potentially be a huge factor in terms of sales gain.

According to Samsung, the Galaxy A50 is made from ‘3D Glasstic.’ Well, to be frank, this is the first time I’ve heard about it, therefore, I’m in no position to comment on it. However, I must add that Galaxy A50 feels and looks different from other glass phones.

The phone has an AMOLED display with a resolution of 1080×2340 pixels. It will feel familiar if you have used Samsung’s AMOLED display phones earlier. The smartphone offers good levels of black, which makes almost everything looks great. The notch at the front is hard to miss, especially while watching videos, but it doesn’t feel like an inconvenience.

Performance

Armed with the Exynos 9610 processor, the Galaxy A50 performs well for most tasks but at times struggles, especially while multitasking. Working with 6 – 7 apps open in the background can cause a delayed response.

The Galaxy A50 runs Android 9 Pie, which means users won't have to wait to get a major update. According to Samsung, the company has also tweaked One UI in terms of design to focus more on usability.

The phone also has Night mode, which is more of a dark theme that text from black to white. You can choose to have it turned on all the time or even schedule it if you so want. The phone automatically changes the wallpaper every time you open the device. The choice of wallpapers is rather smart, as they tend to cover up the notch entirely.

The phone also has Digital Wellbeing to keep track of your phone/app statistics, such as how many times you have unlocked the phone and how much time you’ve spent on an app. You also have the option to set time restrictions on apps.

But not everything’s good here. The biggest disappointment of the Galaxy A50 is the spam notifications and ads that show up on the lock screen. The initial setup process gives you the option to disable ‘lock screen stories’, an option that’s not available to users later if you decide against disabling it during the initial set up of the device. And the result is that you will keep receiving unwanted notification from Daily hunt, in addition to Samsung’s own apps.

The Galaxy A50 really shines in terms of its camera setup. The 8MP ultra-wide lens gives users a 123-degree field of view, which means that now you can capture more expansive landscapes when out on a travel trip or squeeze in more people at a social gathering. The camera app has something called ‘intelligent switch’, which when selected recommends users when to use the wide shot mode. Another advantage of the ultra-wide lens of the Galaxy A50 is that you can even capture videos in the ultra-wide mode.

Overall, the camera app is easy to use, and the images captured are not only good in good light but also in low-light conditions. While some of the details are lost in low-light, the daylight photos are extremely balanced in colours and sharpness.

For portrait shots, you can also change the blur effect from the standard bokeh to one of the filter effects offered. The camera also has the dolly-zoom effect that allows you to make GIFs.

Conclusion

With an AMOLED display, improved One UI software and decent battery life, the Samsung Galaxy A50 is a well-designed phone for its price.